


L'Hymne a L'amour

by drunknpylades



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff, I have no idea where this came from, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunknpylades/pseuds/drunknpylades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur teaches Dreamshare at a college in Paris. Eames is in a special branch of the UK military. They are in love. Eames is MIA. This is how Arthur deals. Or doesn't, as the case may be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L'Hymne a L'amour

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old fic that I'm just now getting around to posting on AO3. It's been over on LJ so if it looks familiar that's where it's from. 
> 
> No beta, so all mistakes are my own.

It gets harder and harder with every passing day. The routine helps. Get up, shower, brush teeth, get dressed, grab coffee on the way out the door, classes. Lunch (if Cobb stops by to make him eat), back to classes. Home, dinner (usually sparingly if he even feels like eating at all), plan the next day’s classes, grade papers if he needs to, then back to bed. Repeat as needed.  
  
It’s been five months since Eames was called away for an op. Two months since Arthur has heard anything from him, and six weeks since Saito has been able to give them anything from his contacts in the service.  
  
Dom keeps telling him everything will be fine. That it’s standard procedure for Eames to keep out of contact for a while. He just has to wait.  
  
Arthur hates waiting. And he hates not knowing where Eames is even more. During their last contact via webcam, Eames told him that they were going after a man that had information on a terrorist cell that had been planning infiltration of the United States Government. The job wasn’t supposed to take this long.  
  
It’s a Thursday morning when Arthur forces himself out of bed and simply sits there, his legs hanging over the side and his head in his hands. He can’t do this much longer. He needs to know Eames is alright. This haze of not knowing is driving him insane.  
  
The shower feels colder than it has any right to be.  
  
When he pulls his clothes on for that day, white pinstripe shirt under a black sweater with matching trousers and a grey jacket -one of Eames’ favorites- he simply looks at himself in the mirror, watches himself tie his own tie and sees a memory in the glass.

-

_Eames’ hands come around his shoulders, batting his hands out of the way as he takes up Arthur’s tie between his own fingers. “Honestly now, darling,” he murmurs. “Am I really that distracting that you can’t tie a simple Windsor anymore?”_   
  
_Arthur inclines his head to give Eames more room to work. “I’m not distracted,” he says simply. “Just worried about what the neighbors will think when they see you making breakfast in your underwear.”_   
  
_“That you’ve gone and gotten yourself an amazingly dedicated callboy.” Eames is somehow able to needle Arthur and still tie a perfect Windsor knot before resting his chin on Arthur’s shoulder. “Lovely, pet. Very put together.”_   
  
_Arthur raises his gaze, catching Eames’ laughing eyes in the mirror. They do look like quite the pair. Arthur perfectly put together and Eames in just his boxers and tattoos._   
  
_Eames starts to kiss at his neck, moving up to take Arthur’s earlobe between his teeth. It goes against every part of Arthur’s body that is screaming at him to just fall back into the arms that have snaked around his waist when he pushes Eames back. “I have to get to my classes, Eames.”_   
  
_The knowing smile on Eames’ face when Arthur turns around tells Arthur that the man knows exactly what he was doing. He leans in to kiss Arthur on the cheek and Arthur turns his head to allow the man a small kiss on the lips._   
  
_When they draw apart Arthur rests their foreheads together. “Have a good day, love,” Eames whispers._   
  
_That night Eames leaves for his mission and the sex is desperate, leaving Arthur to restart his routine the next morning when the man is not there to tie his ties._

 

Arthur’s heart constricts with the feelings the memory brings up and he forgoes breakfast on his way out. The air outside is warm, but still crisp in its newness and Arthur is glad he decided on the jacket. Briefcase clutched in one hand he starts the six block walk from their apartment to the college.  
  
Ariadne is just stepping out of the coffee shop when he walks past. She’s said that she sets her watch by him, and this morning is like all of the others. She’s weighted down by her shoulder bag, sketchbook peaking out of the top and two cups of coffee; one hazelnut mocha combination for herself and a caramel macchiato with a double shot of espresso for him.  
  
She’d started getting him coffee as soon as she noticed that he tended not to eat breakfast on the days that Eames was away, made convenient by the fact that she worked in a coffee shop. “Morning, Arthur.”  
  
“Ariadne, you know you don’t have to keep doing this every day.” To tell the truth he looks forward to it, a brief moment in the days when he can smile and honestly mean it.  
  
Ariadne just smiles and hands him the styrofoam cup. “You tell me that every morning, and every morning I still get you coffee.” She makes a face. “Well, Pash actually pays for it, but she owes me for putting up with her late rent so everything works out.”  
  
“Whatever the case,” Arthur tells her. “Make sure you thank her for me.”  
  
Ariadne nods and takes a sip of her coffee. They make the rest of the walk in silence, not bothering to make small talk. Arthur is glad that Ariadne seems to know his moods almost as well as Dom, she seems to have the uncanny ability to know when he wants to talk and when it’s better to stay quiet.  
  
They reach the Sorbonne and Ariadne gives him a brief farewell, dropping a kiss onto his cheek before scampering off to her first class.  
  
Arthur can feel the blush rising on his cheeks as a small group of girls giggle their way past him. He’ll make her pay for that in the afternoon class she has with him.  
  
His first class is Intro to Dreamshare, but it doesn’t start for another forty-five minutes, so he takes the time to wander the halls. As much as Arthur had protested the move to Paris he’s glad Eames had convinced him. For the fact that it put them closer to their friends, and that Paris was the kind of city that grew on him.  
  
The reason he’d protested in the beginning was because the only reason Eames had given him at the time was that Paris was the city of love and lights.

-

_“Come on, Arthur, darling,” Eames whined, sitting on the barstool in their current apartment, still in his uniform and smelling like gun smoke and fire. “You know you’ll love it. City of love, city of lights. It’ll be like being on vacation every night.”_   
  
_He pulled Arthur in by his wrist and boxed him in with his thighs. “I’ll lay you down every night on some perfectly made bed, with the Eiffel tower shining through our window. And we’ll hear some French minstrel on the street outside, playing something brilliant.” His arms wrapped tightly around Arthur’s waist, bringing their faces so close together that their noses brushed._   
  
_Arthur‘s hands slipped to Eames‘ hips, his fingers curling against the rough material, Eames‘ voice still in his ear. “And after I’ve gotten your perfectly tailored clothes off of you, I’ll make you ready for me with the sounds of Paris as our soundtrack. It will be the most romantic thing you’ve ever had done for you.”_   
  
_“Will there be rose petals?” Arthur couldn’t help himself._

  
_Eames’ hand slid up his back, fingers trailing up Arthur’s spine to cup the back of his neck. “For you, love, I’d cover the whole apartment in rose petals.”_   
  
_“I suppose I could be persuaded,” Arthur teased. “If it’s something you think I could be brought around to.”_   
  
_Eames smiled like he was being given the world before he swooped in and captured Arthur’s lips in the first of many kisses that night._   
  
_They had called Saito to book them a flight to Paris two weeks later._   


 

Arthur arrived at his classroom twenty minutes before the class was scheduled to start. Some students were already filing in, taking their places in the raised amphitheatre seats.  
  
Some students made small greetings as he walked in, but most of them were either talking with friends or too busy trying to get a few minutes more sleep to notice his entrance.  
  
His briefcase made a muted click as he snapped it open on his desk, pulling out papers and going over that day’s lesson in his head. He had made sure to plan the Intro class in the morning because it was the easiest to teach. It had become a joke between he and Eames that he could teach the class half asleep if he needed to. And sometimes he did. Not that he ever let his students know that.  
  
The smug look on Eames’ face when Arthur rushes out of the apartment with ten minutes before the class started to become one of his favorites.  
  
The class is also subdued because of the early hour and it allows Arthur time to think while still keeping half a mind on the lesson. He leaves them with new notesand instructions to try and come up with their own totems that will be used later in class when they go into an actual dream for the final.  
  
It takes a great deal of willpower to make himself wait for the last student to leave before collapsing in his chair. Everything is starting to add up and he doesn’t know what to do anymore. A dull throb has started behind his eyes and he pinches the bridge of his nose in an effort to stave off the headache he knows is coming.  
  
Eames would have been around with lunch if he’d been there, but all Arthur has to look forward to is Cobb. If the man remembers to bring food today. Not that Arthur is terribly hungry, but he likes the company.  
  
Speaking of Cobb, he pokes his head in the door, holding up two brown paper bags -Arthur’s inner image consultant is appalled at the thought of eating out of it- “Hungry?”  
  
“Not really,” Arthur says truthfully, but a small smile has already made its way onto his face.  
  
Dom cocks his hip against the corner of Arthur’s desk. “You say that almost every time I’m here, and yet you always manage to steal something from my bag anyway.”  
  
“Yours tastes better.” Arthur peaks into his own bag. It looks like a regular turkey club, but there is a note stuck to the plastic wrap and Arthur pulls it out of the bag.  
  
The post-it is pink, and in what looks like blue crayon are the words, _EAT IT!_ The small scary face in the corner tells him it’s from Phillipa. “Have you been telling your children I don’t eat?” Arthur asks, raising an eyebrow when he looks up at Dom.  
  
The other man blushes and takes a bite out of his own sandwich. “I may have mentioned that you’ve been sad and haven’t had the time to make your own food. I think James might have snuck jello in there for you, he’s convinced it makes everything better.”  
  
Arthur sets the sandwich aside and digs back into his bag, pulling out a cup of green jello and a plastic spoon. “My favorite,” he deadpans.  
  
“Eames may have mentioned it,” Dom replied.  
  
Arthur tries, really tries to stamp out the anxiety he feels at the mere mention of Eames’ name, but it doesn’t work. “Have you heard anything from Saito?” he asks quietly.  
  
Dom lowers his hands away from his mouth, pointedly looking anywhere but at Arthur. “Not since the last time,” he says, the apology in his tone only making Arthur’s gut clench harder. “When I talked to him this morning he said that Eames’ brigade is still listed as being In Action. They usually consider people MIA if they’ve been missing for thirty days. So at least the military knows where he is.”  
  
 _But I don’t_ , Arthur thinks. He doesn’t know where Eames is and it’s killing him. Of course they’ve had times when he hasn’t known the man’s location before, but never for this long.  
  
“I know that doesn’t really help, but just have a little trust in Eames. You know he’d go through hell and high water to get back here.” Dom’s words help a little, but when he leaves after lunch Arthur still feels hollow inside.  
  
His next class is Paradoxical Architecture, usually his favorite class to teach but today he just can’t seem to get into it. His conversation with Dom earlier was still running through his brain and he couldn’t turn it off.  
  
“As you all know, in the dreamspace you can cheat architecture into impossible shapes and it allows you to create closed loops.” He turns to the chalkboard behind him and draws out his staircase. “Like the Penrose Steps.”  
  
The classroom door opens and Arthur doesn’t even acknowledge it, either a student coming in late or a fellow teacher needing a hand with something. Either way, they can wait. “Now on the final, I’m going to expect you all to be able to create your own closed circuits. So use your time wisely on the PASIVs this week and make sure you keep up with the curriculum if you want to pass this course.”  
  
He turns around, still brushing chalk dust off his hands when his heart stops in his chest.  
  
Eames is standing at the door in full dress uniform, emerald green beret tilted jauntily on his head and the biggest smile Arthur has ever seen on his face. “Hello, Arthur,“ he whispers.  
  
Arthur scrambles for the die in his pocket. He has to know if this is real. This can’t be real. The classroom has gone as silent and still as a grave.  
  
The die drops from his hand and Arthur follows it with his eyes, wanting to pick up and roll it again and again to make sure this is really happening.  
  
“I’m here, darling.” And that seems to be his kick, the thing that throws him into the moment so fast he doesn’t even feel himself move.  
  
One moment he’s standing at his desk and the next he’s in Eames’ arms, not caring that he’s showing so much emotion in front of his entire class. All he cares about is the way Eames feels against him, the way Eames’ arms feel around him. “You’re back,” Arthur whispers, relief coating his words like honey. And he can hear the tears in his voice, feel his eyes burning with the need to cry and all that matters is that Eames is _here._  
  
Eames puts both hands on either side of his face, tilting it back so he can wipe at the wetness that has escaped onto Arthur’s cheeks. “I’m back, and I’m not leaving again for a good long while this time.” He takes Arthur’s mouth in a slow kiss, the room erupting into wolf whistles and clapping behind them.  
  
Arthur doesn’t even care, he just buries himself in Eames’ arms and tries to crawl as far into the man as he can get.  
  
When the need for air draws them apart Arthur sees Dom leaning in the doorway and he gives the man a teary eyed smile.  
  
Dom grins back and turns back down the hallway, more than likely to find Ariadne and Yusuf.  
  
His attention is pulled back to Eames when the man kisses the tip of his nose. “What do you say we go home and I reintroduce you to the reasons we moved to Paris.”  
  
Arthur blushes and he barely has time to grab his briefcase and excuse his students before Eames is dragging him out the door.  
  
  
There are no rose petals that night, but as the beginning strings of Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne a l’amour fill the room Arthur just pulls Eames closer.


End file.
